ON THE VERTEBRATE SKELETON. 177 



by the two great French anatomists who have most advanced this part of 

 osteological science ; by the authors of two classical German works on 

 Comparative Anatomy ; and by their countryman Dr. Hallmann, who has 

 detailed in an elaborate treatise his especial investigations of some of the most 

 difficult parts of this difficult inquiry. I have added the synonyms of the 

 bones of the bead of fishes from the great work of the celebrated Swiss na- 

 turalist, who has, so happily for ichthyology, devoted himself to the advance- 

 ment of that interesting branch of Natural History ; and also, the anthropo- 

 tomical terms for the corresponding parts in the human skeleton. These, 

 after much comparison and deliberation, I have chosen from the justly-cele- 

 brated work of Soemmerring, the high reputation of which has been sanc- 

 tioned by the new edition to which some of the most eminent of the German 

 professors of anthropotomy and physiology have recently devoted their com- 

 bined labours. The English teacher of these sciences will find some of the. 

 descriptive designations of the parts by Soemmerring not agreeing with 

 those which he may be in the habit of using, and which are current in the 

 later Manuals of Anthropotomy published in this country : the ' ossa la- 

 teralia lingualia' are more commonly called, with us, the ' cornua majora 

 ossis hyoidei' ; the ' os spheno-occipitale' is generally described as two di- 

 stinct bones, the ■ os occipitis' and ' os sphenoide'; the 'pars occipitalis 

 stricte sic dicta,' &c. is sometimes called ' squama occipitalis,' or occipital 

 plate ; and other synonyms might easily be multiplied from the osteolo- 

 gical treatises of Monro and later authors of repute. The fact of such a 

 conflicting and unsettled synonymy still pervading the monographs relating 

 to the human structure, should stimulate the well-wisher to the right progress 

 of anatomy to lend an earnest aid to the establishment of a fixed and deter- 

 minate nomenclature. A little present labour and the example of adoption, 

 where the reasonableness and necessity of the reform are plain and undeni- 

 able, will much accelerate the future progress of anatomical science ; and I 

 would respectfully appeal to the Professors and Demonstrators of Human 

 Anatomy for an unbiassed consideration of the advantages of the terms pro- 

 posed in the first column in Table I. It is designed to express the results of 

 a long series of investigations into the special homologies of the bones of the 

 head, in simple and definite terms, capable of every requisite inflection to 

 express the properties of the parts, and applicable to the same bones from 

 the highest to the lowest of the vertebrate series. 



The degree and extent of the diversity of my determinations from those 

 of other anatomists are shown inHhe succeeding columns, headed by their 

 names ; and I proceed now to give the reasons which have compelled me, iff 

 such instances, to dissent from the high authority of Cuvier, Geoffroy, Meckel, 

 Hallmann and Agassiz : these reasons will exonerate me, I trust, from the 

 reproach of underrating their justly-esteemed opinions, which have been 

 abandoned only where nature seemed clearly to refuse her sanction to them. 

 The instances of such dissent are much fewer than they appear to be at first 

 sight. In most cases, where the names differ, the determinations are the 

 same. For ' basilaire,' which Cuvier exclusively applies to the ' pars basilaris' 

 of the occiput, and which Geoffroy as exclusively applies (in birds) to the 

 ' pars basilaris' of the sphenoid, I have substituted the term ' basioccipital' 

 (basi-occipitale, Lat.) ; a term which, as it is more descriptive of the bone in 

 question (l figs. 1 to 25), will, perhaps, be the more acceptable to those 

 who prefer a determinate to a variable nomenclature, since Cuvier himself 

 has almost as frequently applied to that bone the term 'occipital inferieur' 

 as the term ' basilaire.' For the descriptive phrase ' occipital lateral,' the 

 term 'exoccipital' (exoccipitale, Lat.), proposed by Geoffroy, is preferable for 



